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The last test I heard, the NSA had found a way to read information from sectors that had been rewritten to something like 10 times. If they are admitting this, then they can probably go back 12 to 15 times. You can get programs off the internet to completely erase files (even pgp has a wipe utility) that overwrite a deleted file anywhere from 1 to 24 times.

i remember hearing a rumbling a month or so ago about a new data recovery technique using scanning electrons...can't remember now and couldn't google it...

for most cases a good shredder is enough

i've use supershredder from analogx ..it's free
I've also been using sure delete...it's also free and is customizable with 3 levels of security..plus it's drag and drop and you can do single files or whole drives...

to be absolutely sure...i'd encrypt you whole drive then shred it ...then if "they" do recover it...they also have to decrypt...then do a hard drive polish...(do a search for defraggling in the archives...if ya haven't seen how to defraggle...you just have to... )

I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and weird." - Abe Simpson

that's what these "shredder" progs do...they repeatedly overwrite the file.

basics

files are magnetically written to disk using 1's and 0's
when you delete a file in windows/dos it doesn't delete it...it just marks the physical space the file is occupying as free. it can remain there in it's entirety until something else writes over it

problems in terms of security

files stick around until they are overwritten even when they are deleted from recycle

files are not stored in contiguous chunks...a single file can be stored in many different phsyical parts of a disk (that's why we defrag...) so even if part of the file is over written, parts might not be and some data may be exposed.

because we are dealing with magnetism, there is a residual background "noise" that can be read by sensitive equipment and data recovered..even after being overwritten several times.

the shredder programs work on various schemes by writing patterns overtop of the full phsyical space taken up by a file..the more times the disk/file is written over, the less likely the chance that it can be recovered...

I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and weird." - Abe Simpson